


Scarce a Greensward Spot Remains

by Lexalicious70



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Other, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, asylum setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-06-17
Packaged: 2018-11-15 09:10:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11227833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexalicious70/pseuds/Lexalicious70
Summary: When Quentin is incepted, Eliot risks everything to follow him down the rabbit hole of his friend’s mind to find him, but what he finds may destroy them both before they can escape back to reality and Brakebills.





	Scarce a Greensward Spot Remains

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the 2017 Welters Challenge, week two, “Friendships.” The title is borrowed from the writings of poet John Clare. Please heed the warnings! I don’t own The Magicians, this is just for fun and therapy. All mistakes are my own. Special thanks to my BFF Dreamwvr73 and @coldfiredragon for inspiration and support! Comments and kudos are magic! Enjoy.

**Scarce a Greensward Spot Remains**

By Lexalicious70 (TheChampagneKing70)

 

“We can’t just leave it like this. We can’t just say it’s over and let Quentin die!”

 

Eliot stood in front of the dean’s desk, glaring at Henry Fogg with red-rimmed eyes. Behind them, on the leather couch, Quentin laid still and quiet, other than the rise and fall of his chest, as a variety of professors filed out the door.

 

“You heard what Professor Li said, Eliot. The Matarese failed to bring Quentin out of the inception. He’s fallen in too deeply for Penny or any of us to reach.” The older man’s features softened. “I’m sorry. I know the two of you have become fast friends.”

 

“He doesn’t deserve this! We have to find the hedges bitches who did it and force them to reverse the inception!”

 

“The Matarese should have done that already. Something must have gone wrong that they didn’t anticipate. Now.” Fogg adjusted the lapels of his suit coat. “We’ll have to notify Quentin’s family that there’s been—well—they’ll believe it was an accident. We’ll pay for his treatment, of course—”

 

“Treatment? You mean some home or asylum where they’ll feed him through tubes the rest of his life?”

 

“Do you have a better idea? You know that learning magic comes with certain dangers. Quentin knew it too.”

 

“This was done to him!” Eliot pointed to Quentin’s silent form. “He didn’t cast a spell he shouldn’t have or hurt anyone deliberately! We can’t just say this is all we can do!”

 

“We can make Quentin comfortable and then perhaps, maybe in the future, a cure or solution can be found.”

 

Eliot closed his eyes a moment.

 

“At least let me take him back to his room at the cottage.”

 

“Very well. It may take a day or so to contact his father anyway.”

 

Eliot bit back a scathing reply that had something to with Fogg’s own parentage and turned to Quentin. His eyes moved under closed lids and his chest steadily with the pattern of his breathing but other than that, he appeared lifeless. Eliot blinked away the sting of tears.

 

“Come on, Q. I’ll tuck you in.” He murmured, pushing a lock of hair from his friend’s eyes before scooping him up and holding him close to his chest. Dean Fogg made no move to help as the second year moved to the door.

 

“I am sorry, Eliot.” He said, but the only reply was the pointed _snick_ of the office door shutting as Eliot used his telekinesis to close it behind him.

 

 

“What the hell is this?” Margo asked as the door to the Physical Kids cottage opened and Eliot carried Quentin inside and up the steps. “Eliot! Answer me!”

 

“Come with me. We don’t have a lot of time.” Eliot carried Quentin to his room and set him on the bed, his mouth twisting as he wrestled his emotions under control. He pushed a hand through his own hair, dislodging some of the curls from their proper place.

 

“Why did you bring him here? I thought—” Margo looked down at Quentin’s still form. “I thought there wasn’t anything they could do.”

 

“Dean Fogg doesn’t think so. But whatever happened, wherever Quentin is, he’s slipped down so far that not even summoning the Matarese helped. Penny couldn’t find him either, but Penny doesn’t know him the way I do.”

 

“Eliot, you don’t know him very well at all! He barely moved into the cottage a week ago!”

 

“I know him better than Penny! He’s a Physical Kid, Margo, he’s like us, and we can’t just leave him to whatever’s happening in his head!”

 

“So what do you suggest?” Margo asked, and Eliot’s amber eyes seemed to burn into hers, lit from within by emotion.

 

“I need you to incept me, Margo.”

 

“Are you out of your fucking mind, Eliot? No! Just—no fucking way!”

 

“Listen to me!” Eliot grabbed both her hands and sat on the bed so they were more or less at eye level with each other. “Quentin is our friend. Dean Fogg and the staff may have given up on him but we can’t! We’re the only ones he can depend on now! If it were you, there’s no way I would let anyone take you away to be tube fed, to where the only bag you ever own again is a colostomy bag! I wouldn’t let it fucking happen to you, Bambi, and Quentin wouldn’t either. I’m strong—I can go deeper than Penny did and there’s a spell that will help me find wherever Quentin’s gone! Professor Sunderland talked about it during that section on understanding inceptions!”

 

“Since when did you ever pay attention in her class? Or any class?” Margo asked, and Eliot squeezed her hands.

 

“All we need is some of Quentin’s blood. It will link me to him and pull me into where he is!”

 

“You’re talking like we’ve already decided to do this! Jesus El, you don’t just incept someone like you’re giving them a wet fucking willy! This is your life we’re talking about!”

 

“It’s Quentin’s too.” Eliot held her gaze. “And if you won’t do it, I’ll find some desperate hedges that will!”

 

Margo’s dark eyes widened before her expression dissolved into a scowl.

 

“Goddamn it.”

 

“Does that mean you’ll do it?” Eliot asked, and Margo rolled her eyes.

 

“Like I have a choice after a statement like that? Fine! Yes! Jesus!” She bit off each word like she’d rather be tearing Eliot’s throat out with her teeth, but Eliot smiled.

 

“Thank you, Bambi.”

 

“Oh sure. Thank me for putting you into a mind fuck so deep that you might never come back from it!”

 

“You’re right.” Eliot looked over at Quentin, his face inanimate and slack.

 

“But it’s the only way.”

 

Consciousness didn’t come to Quentin all at once. It crawled over him like some large, curious insect, filling his limbs and torso with sensation. It reached his brain, filling it with awareness, and he opened his eyes. The ceiling over his head was unfamiliar and dingy grey, pockmarked with stains. He sat up and the narrow cot he was in creaked. Quentin blinked and tried to raise a hand to wipe his eyes, only to find them both secured to the cot’s metal frame with thick brown leather cuffs. They were cracked with age but unyielding. He glanced around to see that the was laying in the middle of a row of identical cots, and in each laid a man, most of them bound, as he was. Some slept, some lay there with wide, staring eyes, some sobbed, and some thrashed and sobbed. Quentin didn’t see any women: wherever he was, it seemed to be place for men only.

 

The rows of cots extended from the wall behind Quentin’s cot to nearly the middle of the room on both sides, leaving a pathway only wide enough for one person to navigate. A nurse in a starched white dress and peaked cap wheeled a cart down the aisle, stopping here and there to tend to a few of the men. Quentin tugged on his restraints.

 

“Uhm. Hello? Hey, I think there’s been some kind of mistake? Excuse me?” He called, and a short, balding man with a fringe of white hair and old-fashioned glasses—granny glasses, people called them—stepped over to the cot.

 

“Well well, Mr. Coldwater.” He had a familiar accent and Quentin’s confused mind made a cross connection to celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay. “You’re awake! Don’t worry, lad, everything’s going to be all right.”

 

“Oh. Okay, except the thing is, I’m not sure where I am and the last thing I remember is being at the cottage with my friends?”

 

“And that’s where you tarry now! At the Cottage Hospital, in Wrekenton. Your father brought you to us. He is very concerned about you, very concerned indeed! But we believe we can help you with the proper treatment, make you a hale and healthy member of Her Majesty’s populace once again, eh?”

 

“Her Majesty’s—did you say Wrekentons?”

 

“That’s correct. Don’t fret, Mr. Coldwater, we believe you suffer from acute melancholia, but we have cured young men such as yourself from this affliction in the past, and we are confident that we can cure you, too.”

 

Quentin took another long look around the room and then down at himself. He was wearing rough canvas pants and an oversized sweater. Brown slippers covered his feet.

 

_This isn’t real . . ._ He thought to himself, and something in his upper chest burned briefly like an overtaxed light source before going dark again. He frowned.

 

“Okay. Is this one of those trial dreams? Because I think the dean would have given us some kind of warning?”

 

The balding man only smiled. It seemed kind, but it never reached his pale blue eyes.

 

“Your treatment will begin immediately. A bit of hydrotherapy with a wet pack should sort you out to start with. Settle you down, give you a bit of clarity, eh?” Two burly men came over to the cot and undid Quentin’s restraints before hauling him to his feet.

 

“Hey, what—put me down! I can walk, you don’t have to—Alice? Penny? Eliot! Can anyone hear me? Please someone, hear me!” Quentin shouted, his dangling legs kicking. Whatever this was, it was becoming clear that he was in some kind of asylum, but one that existed somewhere in the past, tucked away in the English countryside, away from public concern and medical regulation. One that loomed in the recesses of Quentin’s collective consciousness: Wrekenton Asylum, in Gateshead, near the banks of the River Tyne, in England.

 

A place that had been closed for over 150 years.

 

 

“I just want to go on the record as saying this is a really stupid idea.”

 

Eliot paused in his inventory of the spell’s ingredients to nod at Penny, who he’d corralled as Margo’s reluctant spellcasting partner. The traveler paced around Quentin’s room, giving Quentin’s still form nervous, furtive glances.

 

“Noted, but the inception spell requires two people and you’re available.” Eliot leaned over Quentin and used a sterilized knife from the kitchen to open a small cut on the ball of Quentin’s right thumb. “Sorry, Q.” He murmured as he lifted that hand and let the blood drip into the bowl that held the rest of the ingredients. Eliot then loosened his tie, pulled it free, and unbuttoned the top button on his shirt before laying down next to Quentin on his back, his hands at his sides.

 

“Are your wards down?” Margo asked, and Eliot nodded.

 

“Whenever you’re ready.”

 

Margo leaned over him a moment and Eliot tipped his gaze upwards to meet hers. She scowled.

 

“You two assholes better come back.”

 

“If you love an asshole, incept it. If it returns to you . . .” Eliot trailed off as Margo’s dark eyes narrowed. “Okay. Don’t worry, Bambi. I’ll find Q. I’ll bring him back.” He closed his eyes and felt Margo’s fingers trail along his cheek before the room filled with the smell of the spell and Margo and Penny’s chanting. Brakebills fell away, plunging Eliot into darkness.

 

How much later he awoke, Eliot couldn’t say. Cold drops of water were hitting his face and he shivered, the sensation causing him to open his eyes.

 

He found himself sitting in a wicker wheelchair with grand front wheels, something one might see in a medical history museum. A knitted blanket was thrown over his legs, and a glance downward revealed that he was wearing a rough ivory pullover and old trousers. A shabby faux-silk red dressing gown covered those, but that sight was nothing compared to what loomed in front of Eliot as people shuffled or were wheeled past him on the grounds of what had to be a hospital.

 

It was as if the Physical Kids cottage had mated with some massive brick-and-stone building, combining the peaked roof and the twin brick chimneys with grim stonework and then had elongated into a structure that might span half a football field. The windows that lined the front were also similar to the ones at the cottage, but they were barred over with thick cross hatches of iron. Eliot got to his feet, staring at the building.

 

“Jesus Q . . .where the hell did you send yourself?” He asked softly, and a hand fell on his shoulder. It turned him with surprising strength, and Eliot found himself facing a man he hadn’t seen in years: Reverend Schutt, who had run his parents’ church back in Whiteland. As a child, Eliot had been terrified of the man’s fire-and-brimstone outlook and hated him later on for his sermons about gays and witches being hellbound as Eliot came to understand himself, and at the sight of his preacher’s collar and flat steel-grey eyes, it all rushed back at him.

 

“Eliot.” It was the same deep, stern voice, only now it carried an Irish lilt. “Taking the Lord’s name in vain again? What have I told you, boy, that He hears you, even when you think you’re alone? The devil take you, is there no end to your wicked ways?”

 

“I’m sorry, Reverend, I didn’t—”

 

A forceful slap to his cheeks, forehand, backhand, shocked Eliot into silence and he blinked.

 

“Father Schutt, and I can see that you’ve been given outdoor privileges a wee bit too soon! Orderlies!” He barked, and two men in dingy white uniforms crossed the lawn. The rain began to fall harder.

 

“Take this boy to the hydrotherapy room! I think a few hours in the bath should soothe his heathen soul! And be sure to fit him with a purity device—the doctors tell me his sexual deviancy knows few bounds!”

 

“Sexual—hey!” Eliot jerked away as one of the men took his arm. He summoned up a telekinetic spell that would give the man a nasty shock if he touched him again, but it fizzled on his fingertips and the two men gripped his arms firmly and marched him toward the building.

 

“Come on now, that’s a good lad!” The taller of them said, and Eliot found himself being manhandled through a set of double doors and down a long hallway. The walls and floor were stained a nicotine yellow, and one of the men let go of Eliot to push open another door at the end of the hall. Moist air hit Eliot’s face. The door shut behind him, and he found himself facing a row of deep clawfoot bathtubs. A few were empty and had what looked like canvas hammocks set into them, tied to a thick metal frame that sat inside the tub. Clean sheets with a circular hole large enough to fit one’s head were stacked nearby, and in one of the tubs sat an older gentleman, the sheet stretched over him and secured firmly to the outer edges of the tub. His eyes were glassy and a rill of drool ran from one corner of his mouth. On the other side of the room, a figure lay on a wide table, cocooned in visibly wet sheets. Eliot’s stomach dropped as he recognized the dark blond curtain of hair that hid the man’s face.

 

“Quentin?” He took a step forward and the orderlies grabbed him again. Eliot fought to free himself and reach the table. “Quentin!”

 

The figure on the table moaned and turned his head, which was all that was visible, and the hair fell to one side to reveal Quentin’s stunned face. His pupils were dilated and his lips moved, but no sound came out. He was cocooned so tightly that Eliot could see the entire outline of his body.

 

“Oh shit! What the hell are you doing to him? Quentin, it’s me, it’s Eliot! Wake up!” Eliot shouted as the other orderly filled a bathtub with cold water. The orderly holding him yanked off his robe. Eliot turned, furious, and landed a punch to the man’s jaw. He grunted and stumbled backward, and then four more men were coming through the door, their expressions grim with intent. They took Eliot to the slick, stained floor and held him down while the other orderly, working his bruised jaw, stripped him.

 

“Get the fuck off of me! You fucking assholes!” Eliot shrieked as they lifted his now-naked form into the canvas hammock of the tub and strapped him into it. The cold water hit his body and he gasped, thrashing, as the other men yanked the sheet over his head and secured it to the tub, trapping Eliot inside. Someone slipped a rubber pillow under Eliot’s head as he lay immersed up to his chin, and his teeth began to chatter.

 

“Fuck! Oh fuck . . . Quentin!” He turned his head to look at his friend, but Quentin was staring and still in his cocoon of wet sheets. One of the orderlies set down a steel implement on a table nearby and Eliot stared at it. Judging from its shape, it was clearly meant to fit over his genitals, and it looked so tight that it made his mouth go dry with panic.

 

_Oh shit, it’s a chastity belt!_ Eliot thought to himself, unable to stop his teeth from chattering. The cold water began to numb his limbs.

 

“Q . . . can you hear me? Quentin . . . come on, snap out of it, please!” Eliot tried to pull free of the canvas sling, but he’d been firmly strapped into it with his hands under the water. His fingers and toes went numb and finally he relaxed, although unwillingly, submitting to the treatment.

 

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, immersed and helpless, the silent but menacing threat of the purity device on the nearby table, but when Eliot next opened his eyes, he was numb and weak, and Father Schutt was standing over him.

 

“I was disappointed to hear of your outburst, Eliot. Very disappointed!” Something gleamed in the man’s eyes—a kind of hooded delight, as if this was a well-loved game he’d played many times. “I’ve spoken with your doctors, and they agree that your idle, sinning hands are a detriment to healing. Therefore, we’re going to put them to work at my church, under my close personal supervision, during the daylight hours, after which you’ll be returned here for dinner and rest. Perhaps it will help change your attitude and temper, and help you see God’s path as He works to heal your sinner’s soul.” The gleam in Schutt’s eyes increased as two orderlies freed him from the tub and held him up, his dripping feet dangling. Eliot turned his head to look at the table where Quentin had been, but now it was empty. Schutt picked up the purity device.

 

“The lord and I will teach you humility, boy. Don’t you worry.”

 

Twenty minutes later, Eliot found himself being firmly walked down a different hallway. They’d dressed him in rough drawstring pants and a sweater that was too small for him. The cuffs rode halfway to his elbows. The steel device strapped to his thighs—buckled at the back so he couldn’t undo it on his own—chafed him and made him walk with a careful, shuffling gait. The orderlies took him into a large room filled with cots and deposited him onto an empty one, securing his wrists to it before walking away. Eliot yanked on the cuffs, testing their strength, and then his heart leapt when spotted Quentin just a few cots down. Quentin’s head was turned toward him slightly, his hands secured as Eliot’s were, and Eliot turned over as far as he could.

 

“Quentin!” He whispered loudly. “Q! Hey! Come on, wake up!”

 

Quentin’s eyes fluttered open. The dark irises were muddled with the trauma of the wet pack and what Eliot assumed were sedatives.

 

“Eliot . . . ?” He whispered, and Eliot nodded.

 

“It’s me, Q.”

 

“Dreaming. Must be . . .”

 

“No! Well—you are, but it’s more than that. You’re being incepted! Your hedge witch buddy Julia and her merry pals are fucking with your mind! None of this is real, Q! I came to find you but you’re in so deep that my magic isn’t working! We have to find a way out before we both forget who and what we are!”

 

“Magic?” Quentin muttered, and Eliot lowered his voice as a nurse frowned in their direction.

 

“Yes, magic! Try to remember! You’re a magician! So am I! We both attend Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy!”

 

“Sleep.” Quentin murmured in reply, the treatment and drugs taking effect. Eliot shook his head.

 

“Quentin! Stay with me, come on! We need to make a plan!” His stomach sank as Quentin’s eyes closed and his expression went slack.

 

“Shit.” Eliot muttered, shifting in the narrow cot as the steel plate strapped to his groin made comfort impossible.

 

The following morning, Father Schutt came for Eliot before dawn. He and two orderlies dressed him hastily and bundled him into a carriage, where he was taken to Gateshead. The small community was growing hastily around a large stone church, where Father Schutt held services and amassed a great deal of power over the locals. He insisted on dismissing the orderlies and supervising Eliot’s labor on his own, and soon Eliot found himself hauling water, emptying chamber pots, scrubbing the church’s steps and floor, washing windows, and other back-breaking tasks that left him exhausted. Through it all, Schutt berated him with a mixture of Bible verses and condemning sermons, and by midday, his head throbbed and his hips and thighs were a rash-covered misery from the canvas straps that held the steel plate in place. As Schutt approached him with a cup of water, a slice of thick bread, and a different kind of hunger in his grey eyes, Eliot lowered his gaze and felt his old reality begin to slip away.

 

 

The wheelchair bumped along an uneven path, pushed by an aging, dour nurse. The sun was out, a rarity for the area, and Quentin turned his face up toward the sunlight. His doctor, the one with the granny glasses—Vaulkner, his name was—thought the sun might do him some good.

 

Quentin thought back to the night before as he rolled along. He was pretty sure he’d dreamed seeing Eliot, conjured him up out of fear and loneliness. While much of Brakebills was fading away, Eliot remained a presence in Quentin’s mind. He missed his friend’s smile, his laconic humor, his arch observations, and the way he made Quentin want to be a better magician.

 

_Eliot . . . did I dream him, or . . .?_

The nurse wheeled him to the crest of a small hill, and Quentin twitched as the burning sensation in his chest that he’d felt the day before returned, only now it felt like it was trying to push its way out like—shit, what was that movie, the one with the actress with the frizzy hair? Quentin put a hand to his chest. The nurse paused.

 

“Mr. Coldwater? Are you all right?”

 

“Aliens!” Quentin blurted out, the name of the movie coming back to him. The nurse eyed him.

 

“Let’s get you back to bed. Perhaps you’ve had a wee bit too much fresh air.”

 

“No wait, I’m fine, please, just . . . the view here is so beautiful!” Quentin worked to keep his voice calm as the feeling became raw and familiar, something that made this reality weaker, even if just for a moment.

 

It was magic, and it wanted to show him the way out.

 

The nurse wheeled him back inside about fifteen minutes later and took him to the large room where the patients who were able to sit up on their own ate their meals. There were at least twenty long wooden tables with rough benches, and Quentin tried to hang onto what he’d felt on that hill as they served him a lumpy porridge and a wrinkly, anemic apple. He knew that they’d give him more medication after supper, and that it might cause him to forget what he’d felt. He ate his porridge slowly, making slow, laborious movements with his fingers as he tried to recall a few simple sleight-of-hand gestures that might buy him some time.

 

Two hours later he was bundled into his cot, the medication he’d palmed tucked into his neighbor’s bed. Fortunately, Quentin’s orderly for the evening hadn’t been very observant. The cot next to him was empty, but a few moments later Quentin raised his head as footsteps shuffled toward him and a tall, thin figure was dumped onto it. Quentin’s chest seemed to expand to the size of the Holland Tunnel as he recognized the dark, curly hair and the big yet elegant hands, although they were red and raw, the nails cracked. The orderlies secured them with cuffs and Quentin kept his head down until the men walked away.

 

“Eliot? Hey! Eliot!” He whispered, and the older man raised his head. Quentin’s relief quickly turned to alarm and sympathy when he saw the exhaustion that lined Eliot’s face. His eyes held some awful memory, recent enough that it made them appear both frightened and resigned. Quentin tried to reach out and touch him, but the restraints had little give. “Eliot . . . you weren’t a dream, you’re here . . . hey! Come on, talk to me El, please!”

 

Recognition finally flickered in the amber depths of Eliot’s eyes.

 

“Quentin.”

 

“Yeah! It’s me . . . I palmed my meds in case I didn’t dream you. How did you find me?”

 

“Spell.” Eliot murmured, but it was like he couldn’t quite remember. The reality of Wreckentons was quickly eating up the one he’d came from. “Margo . . . Penny, I think. Came to look for you but this inception . . . it’s strong, Q. Stronger than I’d thought possible. I don’t see a way out.”

 

“Actually, there might be a way. I felt it this afternoon, on a hill behind the hospital.” He lowered his voice to a bare whisper. “But it means we both have to escape the grounds.”

 

Eliot lowered his gaze and Quentin shook his head.

 

“Hey! We can’t let this place take us, El! We have to help each other remember! Come on . . . tell me something you remember about Brakebills.”

 

“Welters.” Eliot said at last, although he didn’t look up. “Margo . . . teaching you the rules and bossing the rest of us.”

 

“Yeah.” Quentin smiled a little. “My turn. Uhm . . . Penny, being a dick. Even when he thought he was being nice.”

 

Eliot’s eyes finally lifted and Quentin felt relief flood him when some of that terrorized look left Eliot’s eyes.

 

“The Cottage. Making drinks for everyone . . . helping you move in.”

 

“You made fun of my clothes.” Quentin replied. “But it was okay, somehow. No one ever teased me like that before. Like it was a joke, but the joke wasn’t on me for a change. You know?”

 

“I don’t make male friends easily.” Eliot said softly, sounding more like himself now. “It’s always too much of a pissing contest. But you seem to be the exception, Q.” Eliot’s eyes closed. “I’m going to miss you.”

 

“El, come on, please don’t say that! I know what I felt on that hill was real and if I can just get back there, I think I can get us out!”

 

No answer. Eliot had passed out from exhaustion, both physical and mental. The room grew dark and Quentin closed his eyes, feigning sleep as the burning in his chest began again, a magnet trying to draw him to the path home.

 

 

Two more days passed and Quentin and Eliot struggled to remember Brakebills as they endured treatments, medications, and as Eliot experienced Father Schutt, just as he had several times back in Whiteland before he’d discovered his telekinesis. He’d buried those memories deep, but as the inception grew stronger, exhumed them, and used them against him, Eliot felt himself sinking, his mind tearing away from the moorings of his old reality. Quentin fought to keep both of them afloat and on the third day, as Father Schutt came for Eliot around 5 a.m., he knew that if Eliot left with the man now, he might not come back at all that evening.

 

_It’s now or never,_ Quentin thought as Schutt began to lead Eliot away. He let his eyes roll back in his head as he began to shake and shudder on the cot, making it slam against the concrete floor. His limbs flailed up and down, and he drooled copiously out of the right side of his mouth, feeling it run down his cheek, warm and foamy. Doctor Vaulkner and two nurses ran over as Schutt paused to watch the commotion.

 

“Get him out of those restraints and into the hydrotherapy room!” The doctor ordered, and Quentin continued to fake a pretty serious seizure until he heard the clack of Schutt’s heavy black shoes on the floor again. As they undid the restraints and hauled Quentin to his feet, he made a miraculous recovery and twisted free, leaping over several cots and sprinting down the narrow aisle to the double doors. He slammed through them and lowered his head as he spotted Father Schutt, his hand around his friend’s upper arm in a vicelike grip. It only served to increase his fury and he slammed into the man’s back full throttle, causing him to stagger and release Eliot. Eliot stood there, gaping as Schutt faceplanted into the concrete, and then Quentin was grabbing his hand.

 

“Come on!” He tugged Eliot forward and the two magicians ran for their lives and out a door that led to the rear grounds. Angry shouting and pursuing footsteps filled the air. It was raining and chilly, and Quentin’s slippers skidded on the grass as Eliot struggled to keep up with him.

 

“Eliot come on!”

 

“I can’t run, Q.” Eliot put a hand to his groin. “It hurts too much, I can’t.”

 

Quentin yanked Eliot behind some shrubbery. His chest was already burning, drawing him to that hilltop again.

 

“What hurts, El? Show me.”

 

Tears welled in Eliot’s eyes as he unbuttoned his trousers and pulled down his long underwear to show Quentin the purity device. More rage burned through Quentin and he examined the thing quickly.

 

“I can’t believe they did this to people. Here, turn around, I think it’s—yeah! Got it!” Quentin unbuckled the thing and pulled it away from Eliot’s body and Eliot gave a short, sharp cry of relief mixed with pain. His groin was chafed but he pulled up the underwear and trousers again before tugging Quentin into a hug.

 

“Oh God. Thank you. Thank you, Q.”

 

“You’re welcome—fucking bastards!” Quentin shouted in the general direction of the hospital before flinging the piece of metal hard and grabbing Eliot’s hand again. “I know where we need to go. Come on!”

 

Now that Eliot was unfettered by the plate, he was able to keep up with Quentin and they reached the hilltop. The burning in Quentin’s chest grew stronger and they ran down the hill together, then across a wide field. Some tall hedges loomed in front of them and Quentin glanced over his shoulder as he heard shouting over the fall of the rain. Quentin turned to one side and shouldered his way through the shrubbery, ignoring the branches and thorns that scratched him and the spiderwebs that brushed against his cheeks. Eliot kicked and pushed through as well, and finally, they stumbled through to the other side to find themselves in a yard of what looked like an English manor. Quentin gasped, the burning in his chest turning into a firey glow, and he looked up at the house, the house he’d seen hundreds of times in photos, his dark eyes wide and stunned. Eliot pushed back his dripping curls. They were filled with twigs and bits of birds’ nest.

 

“Q? What is it? Where are we?”

 

“This . . . it’s Plover’s house. Or it will be, in the future.”

 

“Plover—Christopher Plover? As in, the author of the Fillory books? Q, he won’t even be born for another thirty years or so!”

 

“I know, but the house he bought after he made a fortune in dry goods was built in 1845! It’s here and it’s always held its own magic! If the stories about Jane and Martin are true, about how they traveled to Fillory from this house, then that’s why it must have brought us here! It’s the way out!” Quentin closed his eyes as Jane Chatwin’s words came back to him.

 

_“Don’t stay on the garden path.”_

“The garden path . . .” Quentin glanced around and saw that a quaint gate, painted red, led into the ground’s garden. He yanked it open and splashed down the narrow path, Eliot’s hand still in his. His chest felt like it was on fire. At the end of the path was a shoulder-high cement wall fitted with hanging plants, and it dropped away steeply on both sides to the lower portion of the house.

 

“That’s a dead end, Q!” Eliot shouted as they ran. Behind them, the voices were getting closer, and the sound of a police whistle cut through the air.

 

“Trust me!” Quentin glanced over his shoulder. “Trust me and don’t let go of my hand!” The cement wall loomed close and Quentin tightened his hand around Eliot’s as he jagged left. Footsteps pounded on the path behind them now.

 

“JUMP!” Quentin shouted and Eliot leapt into the air. He hung onto Quentin’s hand as they went into freefall. Quentin took a deep breath and then it lodged in his throat and he struggled to breathe. A massive magical force pushed upward from his chest and then—

 

He was sitting up all at once, gagging and whooping, and Penny and Margo watched, horrified and stunned, as the metallic scorpion Professor Li had used to try and summon the Matarese flew from his mouth. It hit the opposite wall and lay there on its back, the legs twitching. Eliot sat up at the same time, his eyes wide and scared, his limbs flailing. Penny flinched back.

 

“Shit!” He said, and Margo put both hands to her mouth a moment before she went to the bed. She put a hand on Eliot’s tousled curls and one on Quentin’s soft, straight hair as Penny moved the spell bowl aside before it got knocked over and caused the universe to fold in on itself or some shit. The boys stared at each other and then up at Margo, and she shook her head, managing to look pissed and relieved and tearful all at the same time.

 

“Welcome home, assholes.”

 

_Two Days Later_

“How much do you remember?”

 

Eliot paused, a bottle of red wine in one hand. He and Quentin sat on the couch in the Physical Kids cottage, which was mostly deserted this early on a Sunday morning. They’d been up most of the night, drinking and talking and enjoying being back in their own reality. After a thorough physical and a stern lecture from Dean Fogg, they’d been declared in good health and released back into the Brakebills general populace, but for Quentin, the memories of Wreckenton weren’t fading as quickly as he’d hoped.

 

“Some.” Eliot admitted finally, filling both their glasses. “But it’s becoming vague. Another few days and we’ll probably forget it entirely.”

 

“Probably.” Quentin looked up at him. “Dean Fogg told me that place was created by a mix of memory and things I’d read.” He paused. “Things about the Chatwin family . . . Jane and Martin’s mother. Did you know she was institutionalized in a place not far from Gateshead?”

 

Eliot nodded and sipped his wine.

 

“That explains why the place looked like it did. Jesus Q . . . why would you want to read about things like that? If it’s what you fear most, why put it in your head?”

 

“I don’t know, El. I guess because I know I could have ended up in a place like that in the long term, like she did? Or maybe to remind myself of what I have to do to keep from going down that path?”

 

“And what’s that?” Eliot asked, and Quentin smiled before he shifted over and leaned his head affectionately on Eliot’s shoulder. Eliot blinked down at him and then smiled before leaning his head down to rest his forehead against the top of Quentin’s head.

 

“To hold fast to my friends . . . friends who would risk their own lives and sanity to follow me into hell.”

 

“Slow Friday.” Eliot murmured playfully against Quentin’s head, and Quentin pulled back to look up at him.

 

“Thank you, El.” He murmured, and Eliot’s normally languid expression relaxed into a genuine smile.

 

“Do you remember what I told you while we were inside? About not making male friends easily?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“We may have been caught in a dream, but that’s a reality.” Eliot leaned back on the couch, his elegant hands cupping his wine glass.

 

“Q?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

Eliot smiled, his eyes tipped upward to the ceiling, but Quentin didn’t miss the way they glimmered, overly bright, in the light of the cottage.

 

“I’m very glad I didn’t have to miss you.”

 

FIN


End file.
